The present invention relates to a contents management method for protecting copyrights by limiting the number of copied contents and a contents management apparatus using the same and, more particularly, to an erase method of copied contents recorded on a recording medium.
Conventionally, contents (literary works and the like) have undergone copy management. More specifically, by managing copy generations or the number of copies, copyright protection and use are balanced.
On the other hand, the concept “move” has appeared as an alternative to copy management. “Copy” does not erase original data, but “move” transfers data to another location (recording medium (media)) and erases original data. Thus, a protection technique against “move” has appeared. Such technique has emerged due to digitization of contents and prevalence of networks and the like.
In recent years, since copies faithful to an original can be formed via the network or the like, it is becoming increasingly difficult to protect copyrights by only copy management. Also, copyrights cannot be managed against unlimited moves from media to media, e.g., commercial distribution (by means of move) of data.
Under the circumstance, it has become hard to reliably protect copies of original data (especially, contents, copyright of which must be protected).
Especially, in contents management for copyright protection in which copied contents are recorded on and erased from a recording medium while limiting the number of copied contents, the copied contents recorded on a given recording medium must be surely erased upon moving the copied contents recorded on that recording medium. In this case, unlike recording of copied contents, the copied contents can be easily avoided from being erased from the recording medium by cutting a signal or the like so that a third party does not receive a command or the like for erasing the copied contents, in that procedure.